Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Out of the Closet?

Writers don't always tell people around them that they have this little, strange habit...it tends to come up around 3 day holidays. You want to stay in and nail some good writing time, families plan mucho stuff.

I've been "out of the closet" for a long time, but still recall what it's like to be "secretly" writing. You don't tell folks. Why not? People will ask how it's going. People will wonder when you sell your book. Why you don't sell it soon (yeah, it took me between 8-9 years to sell, try fielding questions all that time).

Since she's not much on computers, I'm safe in saying that my mother never believed I wrote. I think she thought every time I left a family gathering early with that excuse that it WAS an excuse and I was bored. But I put my time in.

Work folks knew for years that I wrote. My sf/f friends knew I wrote. But I didn't talk about it much except with my Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer buddies. When Those Who Don't Write asked "how my book was going" I'd usually say, I've finished four and three were out on editor's desks...that was the easy way out, then change the subject.

No one really wants to talk about writing for more than a minute or two.

Today I took another big step -- like slamming the closet door behind me. Two strangers I was interacting with asked me what I did for a living. "I'm a writer," I said. Not "I'm a paralegal and I write," but "I'm a writer."

It's scary, but it's fun, and I feel confident about saying it.

So think of your stories today and consider what would be a small but emotionally enormous step your character could take.Robin